Last days of Symbian - business ticking over

Finland shores up freebie shortfall

Symbian has published its unaudited results for the first half of 2008, the last time the company will be doing so before it becomes part of the Nokia empire later this year. They show things are slightly slower than this time last year, but overall doing fine.

A company whose primary product is about to be turned into a freebie could be concerned that 97 per cent of its income is still coming from royalty payments, but there'll be money from Finland to make up the shortfall once the Symbian OS starts being given out free.

Consultancy services have gone up since 2007, increasing by 76 per cent to £9m in the first half of 2008. It's worth remembering that those companies paying royalties receive quite a bit of support, so that income should increase markedly once the OS becomes free.

Third-party applications for the platform are now knocking 10,000, up by 25 per cent on last year. Once the two graphical layers - UIQ and S60 - are combined, development for the platform should get even easier, though there'll be some transitional aches and pains.

Regulatory hurdles aside, Nokia will take complete control of Symbian later this year, and the Symbian Foundation will take over management of the OS early in 2009. Symbian turned over £85.4m in the first half of 2007, five per cent more than the £81.3m the company managed in the last six months. But those figures will certainly represent a high-point for the company, and it's probably the last time the company will be posting independent results at all. ®